Links for Bitter Gun-Clingers

Guns and religion are killing my traffic, but they’re what I feel like writing about.

As always, I’m getting useful comments. Some mentioned web destinations. I was thinking maybe I should put up links that have been useful to me. Here are a few, off the top of my head.

1. The Other Side of Kim (Du Toit). Grand Poobah of all web curmudgeons. Proprietor of:

2. The Gun Thing. A forum, which I am way too lazy to check out as often as I should.

3. Anarchangel. Chris Byrne knows his guns, and he is no slouch in the kitchen. Well, he may slouch. I certainly do. But he IS no slouch.

4. Michael Bane. Big-time gun writer who blogs. Blogrolled me; I guess he didn’t get the memo about real-media people having an obligation to ignore bloggers.

5. John R. Lott, one of the two patron saints of intelligent gun statistics.

6. Oregon Trails (Laser Cast) ammunition. Cheap and accurate, as far as I can tell. If you can’t find load data, call or email them and they’ll fax it. Or you can ask me, since I already did that.

7. 1911forum.com. I hate starting a sentence or line with a numeral, but there it is. Lots of good info from 1911 fanatics.

8. Dan’s Ammo. Cheap milsurp ammunition in big cans.

9. Bud’s Gun Shop. I have never bought anything from them, but it’s a great reference to find out if you’re getting a good price on a gun.

10. Midway USA. Lots of gun stuff.

I’m sure I forgot someone.

Sites mentioned to me today:

1. Cap’n Bob has some gun-cleaning info.

2. Culver’s Shooting Page. Haven’t tried it, but I am told it has a great forum.

Just got off the phone with Mike. If you think it’s fun having ADD, wait until you hear one person with ADD trying to help another person with ADD shop over the Internet. If Dante had known about ADD, The Inferno would have been a few pages longer.

Mike wanted advice on a new 1911. I am no expert, but I tried to find reviews and so on. I love the SW1911, and so does he, but he ended up with five choices. Springfield, Dan Wesson, Smith & Wesson, Colt, and Taurus. I hear great things about Taurus’s current production, but he wants his first 1911 to be a nice one, and I didn’t think he should take a chance. Other than that, I thought he had four choices that were hard to beat, at his price point. People say Colt has QC issues these days, however, and my only Colt bears the rumor out, so I mentioned that to him.

The Dan Wesson Pointman looks really nice. Great reviews. It has a number of good outsourced parts in it, plus a match barrel. And Mike used to have a Dan Wesson revolver he treasured. Some idiot stole the revolver and left the three interchangeable barrels that belonged to it. I told Mike I thought he should buy the Dan Wesson just so I could shoot it.

The other option was the Springfield Loaded. Most people seem to love this gun, but I have read some off-putting complaints, too.

I hope he manages to pick something. Mike without guns…it’s just wrong. If you knew Mike, you would understand.

I remember all the fun we had as kids, sitting on the floor at his house, surrounded by loaded guns. And the times he shot his deer rifle in his suburban backyard. How different life is these days. Our parents would be in jail, and we’d be receiving counseling by tabouli-smelling Wiccans working for the county.

Okay, yes, I suppose it’s a bad idea to ignore your kids while they play with your gun collection. But we survived. I shot a neighbor’s kid in the neck once. But that was only a BB gun, and I apologized sincerely. Mike’s brother used to shoot him with a BB gun just for the joy of it. Clearly I was not as bad as I could have been.

Can’t wait till he gets that gun down here. It’s okay, letting your friends use your guns. But it’s much more fun when everyone brings something to the party.

I have a Caldwell HAMMR machine rest on the way. It’s sort of like a Ransom rest, only cheaper. You clamp your gun in it, and it shoots it for you, and you find out whether your gun is any good. The idea is to avoid unnecessary upgrades to guns that already shoot well. Unfortunately, this may prevent me from buying cool new stuff.

Enjoy the links.

Clean Guns, Empty Pockets

Hornady One Shot cleaner and dry lube is one annoying product. On the one hand, it costs nine dollars for five and a half ounces. On the other, it blasts powder off of a gun like nobody’s business, and it leaves a nice dry lubricant behind.

Tonight I tried Bore Scrubber and One Shot, side by side, hoping the Bore Scrubber would compare. But it didn’t. In fact, I used One Shot to rinse off powder deposits the Bore Scrubber left behind.

Midway has Hoppe’s spray at a fairly good price, as well as Break-Free Powder Blast. They also have something called Sharp Shoot R Flush Out citrus degreaser. I may try that.

One thing I noticed: my .45 was pretty nasty when I broke it down, whereas my .38 was remarkably clean. The difference? The powder, I guess. I used No. 7 in the .38 and Unique in the .45.

With One Shot and a Boresnake, I can clean a gun pretty well in 5 minutes. Geez.

Damn that stuff.

This Will Learn me to Shoot

The shooting went well today. In fact, it went too well. With both guns, at 7 yards, I shot bullet after bullet through the same big holes. And I eventually realized I was getting no information at all. When you shoot, you need to know where the bullets are landing so you can tell how well you’re doing. So from now on I’ll be shooting at 50 feet.

Here are 50 rounds from the .45. Better than usual.

Here are 50 from the .38 Super, which felt great but were not quite as good as the .45s.

At 50 feet, things opened up. It seems like the core of the group is good, but there is something I do wrong to drive things off to the side. I only managed to get 48 rounds to work. Sizing issues, I think.

The .38 Super gave me real problems with cycling. The first 50 rounds were okay, and 49 of them were nickel cases. The second 50 were all brass, and I had maybe 10 that wouldn’t chamber. Maybe I’m not bringing the sizing die down far enough. I’ll have to check. But it shot okay. I fooled around with my grip, and while I think Massad Ayoob is right about a tight grip being a good thing, I dont think it has to be as murderously tight as he suggests. The thing that sent the most bullets through the center of the group was a careful trigger pull. That seems to be what I need to work on most.

Now that I can tell where I’m shooting, I hope to see some improvement. I thought I should keep shooting at 7 yards until I was doing considerably better than I am, but now I believe that the lack of feedback from 7-yard targets held me back.

In other news, I backed over my highly tactical shooting box. I was tired, and I put it in the driveway so I would have a shorter roll to the garage, and then I got in the car and backed into it, shoving it a foot or two. No real damage, although it looks meaner now.

Mike has a gun dealer telling him to buy a Springfield Loaded instead of an SW1911. I question that advice. The big selling point of the SW1911 is the large number of high-end parts you get for a mid-range price, plus some of the assembly is done by S&W Performance Shop people. This guy says the Loaded is a better gun for the money. I don’t see how both of those things can be true.

Chris Byrne contradicts my charitable assessment of the Hornady Lock-N-Load AP’s flimsy mounting system, saying it’s a design flaw. He knows more than I do. I better go out to the garage and think up a way to fix it.

Aced my dental checkup today, by the grace of God. I was afraid kosher-for-Passover Coke would do me in, but it looks like I am in the clear for another six months.

I am a Disappointment

I’m going to try to hit the range today, after a fun stop at the dentist’s office. I think I get on his nerves. I failed to go for several years, and he seemed disappointed when I had a perfect checkup. I have been trying to eat more caramel this year, to make it up to him. I blame prayer for my fine dental health. The possibility of a thousand-dollar dental bill is great incentive to pray before a checkup.

People are commenting on the mounting problems with my Hornady press. I don’t think it reflects all that badly on the product. Maybe I should have used thicker lag screws. Other people seem to get it working. A third eye for a bolt at the rear would be nice, but I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say leaving it out was a design flaw.

No time. Must fly.

Life’s Essential Components

Is this my lucky day or what? My weekly Winn-Dixie Internet ad arrived this afternoon.

Boston butt, $1.49! Not bad.

Ground chuck, my favorite type of burger, $1.48!

Hmm…that’s the only exciting stuff this week. Has the gravy train run off the track for good? I certainly hope not.

Reloading is as confusing as ever. First, I was told only to use “published loads.” Then I was referred to websites where any fool can post load data; even to me, that seemed crazy. After that, I found a published load in a reloading journal, and I figured it had to be okay, but a reader is now telling me it’s not good enough that it’s published.

I have been using 5.2 grains of Unique with 230-grain cast round nose bullets, and I said I might like to go up to 6.0. I was told that was a scary amount of powder to use in that load. Okay, no problem. Then I got the reloading magazine, and one of the loads they featured was exactly what I had considered doing. It was 6.0 grains of Unique and the bullet I’m using now. But I’m being warned that it’s not good enough that it was published, and that I should still work up to it. The magazine didn’t publish a minimum and maximum, so I figured 6.0 meant 6.0.

I will never get this stuff figured out.

The Unique thing doesn’t matter, now that I think about it. As things stand now, I think 5.2 is just swell, and I’m not really interested in changing, because it will mean spending more on powder. But I would like to know what I’m doing. In fact, the only change that interests me is trying a new load with HP-38 or Winchester 231, because the reloading magazine guy seemed to like it.

I am wondering if I should get a chronograph. They’re fairly cheap. As I understand it, “reading” cases for pressure signs is a discipline packed with mythology and BS, so I figure the smart thing is to go ahead and find out how fast the bullets go.

The press is giving me fits today. The primers for my .38 Super cartridges keep failing to seat or failing to feed, so powder pours out of the primer holes into the workings of the machine, and it’s just not good. I can’t figure it out. I’m wondering if these cases have smaller holes than the ones I reloaded earlier. I really have to whack the lever to make the primers go in fully, and that’s bad, because it can make a little powder fly out of cases that haven’t had bullets seated in them. Maybe the intelligent thing is to size and prime all of them and then run them through again to add powder and lead.

I am still not happy about the way the press mounts to the bench. It’s bolted down as firmly as possible, and the bench doesn’t flex noticeably, but the press still rises a little in front when I operate it. You would think Hornady would have stuck a third bolt hole on it for people with this problem. I guess I’ll have to come up with my own solution. I want it to be completely solid. Maybe case lube would help, by reducing the force I have to put on the handle.

I found a local range that will rent me a Performance Center 1911, so for twenty bucks, I can find out what all the fuss is about. I think I should do it. If it shoots just like my SW1911, there will be no point in moving to a more expensive gun.

Tomorrow is a range day. Too bad Mike won’t be there. But nobody put a gun to his head and forced him to live in New Hampshire. As far as I know.

In my case, that’s what it would take.

You Only Need One Blog

My life is finally complete. I received the extra 1911 clips I ordered. Now I can keep the original clips loaded with Gucci ammunition and use the new ones at the range.

Words cannot describe my joy.

I had heard that the SW1911 came with Wilson Combat clips, but the clip I ordered for it is a Wilson, and it’s not like the originals.

I also received the Hodgdon reloading manual. It’s a MAGAZINE. Can someone explain? I guess it doesn’t matter, as long as it works.

Yesterday I was in a bookstore, and I saw a reloading magazine, and it had stuff about lead bullets, so I nabbed it. The dude who wrote the article claims he gets “reliable” loads with Winchester 231, as compared with Unique. I’m not sure what that means. Is it normal to have reliability issues with powder? That would explain why I keep having to pound slugs out of my barrel. Although I thought the main reason might be stupidity.

He published–they count if they’re published–loads including one for 6 grains of Unique and a 230-grain Laser-Cast bullet. I suppose that means I don’t have to be scared of my 5.2-grain loads. A while back, some readers were questioning my admittedly ignorant idea about going up to 6 grains. Looks like the question is answered.

Mike is on the way from Delray. If at all possible, we’ll shoot. Trail Glades is not open, but there’s an indoor place where I can rent a Performance Center Smith & Wesson 1911. You know I can’t pass that up. I have to see if superior iron makes a difference.

More excitement: I harvested two tomatoes. Brandywine and Dr. Wyche’s. I am really crazy about those Dr. Wyche’s. Hard to describe the flavor. Usually yellow tomatoes are a little bland, but these, which are a bit orange, have a lot of character. I hope I can get them to produce indoors.

I was busy with something tedious earlier today. I expect to be able to get back to writing tomorrow. In the meantime, watch this educational video provided by reader Steve B.

Obama Season!

When Mike is in town, discipline goes out the window. I eat too much. I forget to water my plants. And yesterday, I didn’t spend nearly enough time acknowledging God. On the plus side, Mike and I had a long and productive conversation about our beliefs. That was worth a lot.

I got behind on my blogging, too, which is sad, because Hillary Clinton apparently threatened to shoot Barack Obama. Do I have my facts wrong? Details have never been my thing.

I think now we know what she really wants to do to staffers who look her in the eye when she passes. On the up side, it looks like she is making a twisted sort of progress with regard to her views on gun control.

We can’t let this woman become President. Her staff hung condoms on the White House Christmas tree. Condoms! OUR tree! If we’re going to elect a person like that, why don’t we just paint big bullseyes on our roofs, along with the words “Plague and earthquake here, please”?

People tell me God doesn’t punish people like that any more. He doesn’t? Oooooookay. I guess the long list of hideous, incurable, behavior-related diseases is just an incredible set of coincidences. Cervical cancer, lung cancer, cirrhosis, morbid obesity, diabetes, hepatitis C, herpes…coincidence after coincidence.

I have been told AIDS isn’t a plague. If AIDS doesn’t qualify, someone tell me what does. If AIDS isn’t a plague, then the word “plague” should be removed from the dictionary, because it is impossible for any disease to make the cut.

Not only is AIDS a plague; it’s a laser-guided plague with very limited collateral damage. You have to be pretty unlucky to get it without doing something immoral. It’s not like smallpox or the bubonic plague, which don’t discriminate on the basis of morality.

Some people say the “fear” part of “God-fearing” actually refers to a warm, fuzzy feeling. Maybe so, but I am trying to cultivate a healthy fear of judgment. I think this is one of my big deficiencies. There was nothing warm or fuzzy about what happened to Jezebel or the prophets Elisha fried alive or the people of Sodom. I am not anxious to cause myself problems by thinking of God as a giant teddy bear.

I used to think the US was blessed because we helped deliver the Jews out of the hands of the Nazis. Lately, I’ve started to think we’ve actually been punished, for turning them away before the war. Not just the people on the St. Louis, whom we sent to die in the gas chambers. But Jews, generally. We kept them out. I believe that may be why we ended up losing so many men in bloody wars, and why the children of the GI generation turned out to be so immoral and so damaging to America. Why we suffered the cancer called the Sixties.

Did you know American universities used to have Jew quotas? Robert Oppenheimer, who was to other geniuses as Muhammad Ali was to Chuck Wepner, had to get by a quota to do undergrad work at Harvard. I wish I had all the facts in front of me, to help you understand how nutty that is. This is a person who graduated with a degree in chemistry (while auditing several courses in addition to his normal courseload) and then got a Ph.D. in physics in a single year. You just don’t do that. And Richard Feynman was kept out of Columbia by a quota.

It occurred to me the other day that no one ever mentions what should be the most obvious cost of keeping Jews out of the country. We could have taken in millions. Think what that would have meant. Think of what we lost. Scientific advances. Great music. Distinguished judges. Inventions. Jews get something like 20% of the Nobel prizes. Wouldn’t that figure be higher if Hitler hadn’t killed a third of them? And if they had had American money, backing their advances? And wouldn’t it be wonderful to live in the country where the additional discoveries were made?

God told Abraham the world would be blessed through his seed, and He wasn’t kidding, and He wasn’t just referring to the Messiah.

I wonder how different life would be, if not for the achievements we prevented by closing our doors. What diseases might be curable. What technology we might have. How many Oppenheimers and Einsteins and Bohrs and von Neumanns and Rubinsteins and Cardozos and Salks and Tellers did we send into the crematoria?

The US is the friend of the Jews. But it hasn’t been a very good friend. And we have paid a price.

Anyway, I’m very sorry to hear that Senator Clinton is now hoping her enemies get shot by white supremacist militia nuts. A critical person might say this reflects a certain degree of desperation and conceivably, a tiny deficit in the empathy department.

Or Were They Always Lame?

Arduous day today. Mike and I went to the range, and we had to sit through a safety class so he could get his range ID. Then we shot a whole bunch of .357 and .45 rounds.

I thought shot well under the circumstances. It was gusty all day, and then in the middle of the session, a steady wind kicked up, so strong it blew targets out of their frames. It was one of those winds that are so forceful that if you aren’t ready, you may have to take a step to keep your balance.

I’ve about had it with wind at the range. I don’t know what the explanation is; Miami isn’t naturally windy. Winter and spring are always worse than summer and fall, but I didn’t realize May could be this bad.

In years past, when I heard people talking about the effects of wind on ballistics, I thought they were only talking about the wind’s power to make bullets drift. But the wind also shakes you while you’re aiming, and if you’re shooting a pistol from an unsupported standing position, it’s exasperating.

I did okay anyway, but I am too lazy to post photos. Mike hasn’t shot in a long time, and he was frustrated, but I would say he was still the third-best shot on the pistol side. He had problems with flyers, but the central shot-out area on his targets was maybe the size of a fist. If he ever gets himself situated so he can shoot once in a while, he’ll be a great shooting partner.

Someone sent me info about the IDPA, which has competitive matches. I signed up. Why spend all my time slow-firing at motionless targets, if I can get an opportunity to do something with more variety?

I would love to get some work, writing for gun publications. I suppose the more experience I have, the more likely that is to happen.

I have read a little bit about IDPA competitions. They expect you to use real-world skills, drawing a gun you might carry on an ordinary day and shooting it at targets that pop up unexpectedly. They say a number of people have had bad surprises while doing this. Guns that they loved at the range turned out to be high-maintenance in competition, and that would have affected their use on the street.

Kind of makes me wonder if a semi-auto is the way to go for something like this. I have seen experts claim that semi-autos are so great these days, they’re just as reliable as revolvers. But I’ve never had a revolver refuse to fire, except when the ammunition failed. Never. I think every one of my automatics has failed. Not positive about the .38 Super and the Glock 26.

Wouldn’t you know it; this issue comes up just as I develop an interest in a large-frame .357 Magnum revolver. My .357 is 6″ long and holds 7 shots and has a medium frame. The Smith & Wesson Model 627 has a 5″ barrel, holds 8 shots, and has a large frame, which should last forever. This sounds wonderful to me. I think 4″ is a little short, and 6″ is a little long. And I have read that medium-frame .357 revolvers aren’t quite as sturdy as they should be for the .357 round. And 8 shots…sweet, if you’re using it in combat competion with 7+1 and 8+1 automatics.

Speaking of the .357, which is just about my favorite caliber, it’s really hard to find free brass. It turns out almost all of the people I see shooting beautiful .357 revolvers at the range are using puny .38 shells. I just don’t get it. Why spend the extra money on a heavy .357, if you’re going to shoot girly ammunition? The obvious answer: you want a gun that looks cool, but you aren’t willing to take the time to learn how to shoot the round it was designed for. Geez. Why not buy a .30-06 and rig it up to shoot BBs?

You can get a perfectly nice .38 from Smith & Wesson for over a hundred bucks less than a .357.

I know people say they like shooting .38 Special rounds because it’s easier on their hands. But that doesn’t explain why they buy the Magnum pistols in the first place. I’m sure the .38 pistols shoot just as well. Are they trying to hide the already-wimpy recoil of the .38 round in the mass of the bigger gun? I suppose that makes some sense, but you can buy a pretty big .38.

You can’t tell me people train with .38 and then load with .357 for defense. Well, maybe you can. But that would be a bad idea. The difference in recoil is tremendous. And the .357 is much louder. If you’re used to shooting weak ammunition, you’re going to have to learn to shoot all over again when the burglar breaks down your door. And you’ll have about two seconds to do it.

Speaking of burglars, I’m thinking I should get some electronic hearing protectors that only muffle very loud sounds. Why? Because if a burglar comes into your house, you’ll want to hear everything he does. But you won’t want to ruin your hearing when you shoot him.

I think most people I see shooting .38 rounds in .357 pistols are doing it for two reasons. First, it’s cheaper. Second, they don’t really know what they’re doing or care to learn. They’re casual shooters who have shown up just to have a good time.

I have guns that are hard to shoot (.50 AE, .357), and I have guns that are easy to shoot (9mm, .45, .38 Super), and my experience so far tells me you can shoot an easy gun well after training with a difficult gun, but the reverse is not true. For example, today I shot the .357 first, and it was challenging, because it’s heavy and the trigger is hard to pull. Then I shot the .45, and I felt like I was using a squirt gun. When I used to start out with the .50, the .357 felt like a squirt gun. Using the difficult guns made the easy ones less of a problem. I think if I had endless ammunition and range time, I’d start every session with a box of .50 AE and then go to .357 before shooting my more practical guns.

The other day my dad asked me about the recoil of the .45, and I didn’t know what to tell him. I don’t notice it any more. I couldn’t tell him whether the .45 or the .38 Super kicked harder. I had no idea. I still don’t. The .357 and the .50? Those, I notice. Especially when the huge cans they call .50 Action Express brass nail me in the forehead.

The gun show was fun, but ultimately disappointing. The 1911 selection was bad, and the prices weren’t good. It was like these guys had never heard of the Internet. Example: Colt Special Combat Government model: $1670. The first place I find in a Google search sells it for $1600. No tax. I just found another place: $1480. And I should spend $1670? Are you kidding me? The tag said $1690, and I asked the kid the real price, and he acted like he was thinking, and then he had the gall to say $1670. Bad price. Bad salesmanship. If you’re going to put a bogus price on something and then drop it to impress rubes, you don’t drop it by one percent.

I saw virtually no reloading stuff. That was a bummer.

Mike was considering buying at the show, but it just wasn’t worth it. I didn’t get the impression that the vendors were trying to move merchandise by offering special gun show prices. I got the impression that the vendors were trying to take advantage of impulse buyers, to sell things at their usual prices. Or worse.

I can’t say that about every vendor. Only a couple where I looked at pistols. I saw what looked like a very good deal on an aluminum-receiver Tommy gun. I asked the guy if it was aluminum. He said, “It’s alloy.” Clearly irritated. Hey, I apologize for knowing your gun isn’t steel. It’s not my fault I can read. And the Auto-Ordnance website says “aluminum.”

The show was small, too. Maybe that killed the competitive urge among the vendors.

Fair place to buy trinkets like Boresnakes. Guns? Not so much.

Great day anyway.

Saturday is Shaping Up

I believe I am headed for a pretty decent day.

Mike will be in town, and we plan to hit the gun show with George Moneo. With any luck, I’ll manage to assist Mike in choosing a pistol. I think his brain is fried from Google shopping. Last night he said he had settled on a Beretta 1911.

If the weather holds out, there will be range time. And regardless, there will be pizza.

I’m putting together a shopping list for the show. I hope they have reloading stuff, because it’s the one category of gun crap I can’t buy economically on the web. Jug of Unique, jug of No. 7, a few primers, and I’ll be all set.

I may look–LOOK–at Les Baers and PC1911s. But I won’t buy. Oh no. I won’t.

Shut up.

Hard to beat a pleasant Saturday with good friends. Hope your weekend is as enjoyable as mine.

Hey, check out the Military Channel, if you want to get in the Memorial Day frame of mind. Their documentaries will really help you appreciate the tremendous sacrifice our soldiers have made in order to buy us freedom and wealth.

New Career Direction or Temporary Insanity?

Hold onto your chairs and plant both feet firmly on the floor. I have shocking news. I have an urge…to buy a gun.

No, I’m serious. I really do. I know it sounds crazy.

I feel like my shooting has improved to the point where a more accurate gun would make a noticeable difference. The holes I’m shooting in my targets haven’t gotten much smaller, but they’re a little smaller, and sometimes they reflect 50 shots instead of the 25 I used to shoot. When you shoot 50 rounds instead of 25, your groups should get bigger, not smaller.

It’s hard to know how accurate guns are from reading reviews. If I were to believe reviews, I would guess that my 1911s will shoot about a 3″ group at 75 feet. That’s more or less what the SW1911 does in reviews, and the Colt shoots as well as the SW1911. BUT…gun writers are not great with science. I believe they’re talking about “best groups” when they publish these figures, and they only include three shots. I have a feeling that 50 shots would paint a different and less flattering picture. I suspect that the real figure is something like twice 3″. Discounting bad groups is bad science.

With either 1911 and a full clip, I can probably wound you reliably at a hundred yards. If you’re pretty fat and you don’t move. I extrapolate from my short-range results. That’s really good effectiveness, for a pistol. At least in my opinion. But at any range above 25 yards, all I can count on is hitting a person somewhere on his upper body. A more accurate gun would presumably be more effective, at long range.

Let me stress that I have absolutely no interest in shooting people. But I have a lot of interest in being able to shoot people, so I have some say in whether I or another innocent crime victim gets to live or die. So it makes sense to use the human body as a model when I talk about accuracy.

You can get a Les Baer 1911 guaranteed to have 1 1/2″ accuracy at 50 yards, with certain ammunition. I suppose if the gun is inherently that accurate, there is no way I would ever get good enough to have the size of my groups significantly affected by the failings of the gun. It would not be cheap. But I should never need to buy another 1911 for target purposes. Barring weird race guns.

Smith and Wesson makes a couple of Performance Center guns that are very nice, and Colt makes Special Combat models and other highly accurate pistols. I don’t know if I’d trust Colt, but my SW1911 and my 686 are the loves of my life. Seems like these and the Baer guns are the best choices below a certain price. Although you have to pay Baer extra money to get the 1 1/2″ guarantee. I’m inclined to think the Smith is the best choice.

I have learned to read between the lines when I read gun articles, and I’ve also learned to pay no attention to accuracy claims made by people whose targets I haven’t seen. About 3% of shooters shoot well. The rest don’t actually know whether their guns are accurate. To a person who shoots pie-size groups at 7 yards, a change to softball-size groups may seem like great accuracy. But it doesn’t tell you anything about the gun. I think you have to put a gun in a clamp or turn it over to a very fine shooter in order to learn anything about its accuracy.

Whatever I get, I can tell you this. It probably won’t be a .38 Super. I love my Colt, but with a .45 you get free brass for life. And I can’t tell any difference in accuracy or ease of shooting.

I’ll see what they have at the show. Maybe I can get a deal. On the other hand, maybe I should buy a Ransom rest instead. Maybe my guns are already super-accurate, and I don’t know it.

Hmm…Caldwell makes a machine rest I can get for $125. That sounds smarter than blowing $1500+ on a gun, on the mere suspicion that it will help.

People are congratulating me on not maiming myself with the cheesy round that failed to exit the SW1911 yesterday. I still can’t explain it. I had great confidence in the charges. The Lock-N-Load AP is designed so the filled cartridge rotates into your line of vision before you seat the bullet, and you can look into each cartridge. I am sure I did that, but I was more worried about overcharges than undercharges, so maybe I passed a round or two that clearly weren’t overfilled, yet weren’t right.

Somebody in the comments expressed surprise that I wouldn’t notice the difference in the feel of the round going off. Hey, that’s ADD for you. It doesn’t mean you can’t concentrate. People with ADD often have super-fantastic concentration. The difficulty is in deciding what to concentrate ON. So it makes sense that I would forget the noise and recoil while thinking about grip, sight picture, stance, trigger pull, follow-through, and so on.

When I was a kid, I used to exasperate my mother because I could never hear her when I was reading.

Maybe a powder checker is a good idea after all. I’m pretty sure overcharges will never be a problem for me, but undercharges appear to be a threat.

I keep thinking I would like to get into gun writing. I am not the world’s greatest gun authority, but I have a few other assets. As a lawyer, I can write with some intelligence regarding second amendment issues. As a former scientist, I have some hope of understanding ballistics. And maybe I can sell myself as a humorist. If I could just figure out where to look for opportunities. I’ll be working on that.

Except When They Stay in the Barrel

The range was a great experience today. I shot my .38 Super and .45 ACP reloads. I already knew my .45s were wonderful, but it turned out the .38s shoot very well, too. I was pleased.

The only irritating thing is that it seems like I invariably open up my groups with the last 10 shots, spoiling some very pretty targets.

I am pretty sure this is 30 shots from the Colt .38 super, at 7 yards. It’s roughly 30, anyway. I noticed today that some flyers seem to appear no matter how well you do your job. I’m not sure. Maybe it’s just me, but I had one shot that was way off, and I was extremely confident I was doing things right when I pulled the trigger. Someone who knows more about guns might be able to tell me. I always thought gun writers were making excuses when they said semiautomatics produce their own flyers occasionally. I know it’s possible I dinged a bullet during manufacture, or that I undercharged a round. I don’t think fouling was a problem. These babies should have been running close to 1200 fps, and I saw nothing of interest in the barrel when I cleaned the gun.

I got out the SW1911, and I thought it shot great. And of course, the group opened up at the end of the set. Fifty rounds:

Here are about 20 more rounds from the .38. I think I was concentrating badly here.

I started the last set with the .45, but a round stopped up the gun. I thought I had some casings that were too fat to chamber, but when I stripped the gun at the podium, I found that a slug was just past the chamber, and it was keeping the next round from chambering. Thank God. I don’t know how it happened. Undercharge, I guess? Anyway, there was no damage to the gun. No ringing. When I got home, I shoved the dowel from a mullet boner (look it up) into the gun and popped the round out, and after cleaning, everything was swell. Scared me, however.

I have to reiterate my concern about not knowing whether rounds have cleared the muzzle. As you can see, I was shooting through the same hole over and over, getting no feedback from the gun or target except for recoil and noise. I guess the undercharge fooled me when it went off. Maybe that’s because I concentrate too hard to really hear what the gun is doing. I wish I had a target that always told me where the bullets landed. Trail Glades won’t let you use multiple bullseyes any more. If they did, I could divide the rounds up among them, reducing the “same hole” problem.

Here are 50 more from the .38 Super, along with two or three .45s.

I shot next to a cop today. He was dressed in black (sunny and 90+ today), including SWAT boots, and he was wearing an H&K shirt. Had a badge on his belt, which seems like an odd thing to do at the range. Not a great shooter. I felt a little self-conscious, but after all, I went there to do my best. I think I could have helped him a lot. He leaned way forward. His gun must have been shaking all over the place. He looked cool, however.

I think people show up at the range, point the gun, and pull the trigger, without even thinking about studying or asking for tips. I used to do that. It’s a big waste of time and money. If you want to hit anything, you have to think about technique. I help anyone who asks me, although I am not qualified to teach. I tell them what works for me. I wish I knew how to not shoot to the left.

I really don’t understand cops who shoot badly. They get free ammunition and range time, and I’m sure they get training. And I know a lot of them like to shoot, because they show up at the public range with big boxes of ammunition and very pretty guns. It must be ego. They must be too proud to ask for help. Which doesn’t make much sense. You would think they would be too proud to let themselves shoot poorly. Their messed-up targets aren’t exactly invisible.

I ask for advice here, I read websites, I read books, and I pray for help. I may ignore your advice once I’ve heard it, but I do think about it.

I found out Miami is finally having a gun show. I never thought it would happen. I haven’t been to one in years. Hope it doesn’t stink.

I think I learned a few things today. For one thing, I tend to lean forward when I shoot, ruining my balance. So when I find myself doing that, I stop and fix my stance. My trigger pull is too slow; it takes so long, sometimes I start to shake, or I lose my sight picture, or my concentration fades. And I worked on keeping my weak fingers tight.

I don’t know if it’s possible for me to shoot much better than I am right now, with these sights and these targets. Once the center of the target is gone, I lose my point of aim. And the sights force you to guess where your POA is, within a circle, on the target, which is over an inch in diameter. And I don’t think I can reduce my natural shaking much more. If you’re alive, you’re going to shake a little. My guess is that if I keep working at it, I may be able to reduce the size of my groups by a third, but I don’t think I can get more accurate than that.

I don’t know why these Laser-Cast bullets are so accurate. I tried to choose the optimal diameters. Not much choice with the .45s, but I didn’t have to pick .356 for the .38.

Accurate No. 7 powder seems cleaner than Unique. It doesn’t matter. Unique isn’t filthy enough to be a problem. I’m shooting about 5.2 grains of Unique in the.45 rounds, and 8.2 grains of No. 7 in the .38 rounds.

Best achievement of the day: I killed two horseflies and smeared their guts on the pavement. MAN, I hate those things. I had to wear bug repellant, so I was afraid to drive my own car, which has leather seats. I had to borrow my father’s SUV.

I keep thinking about the new Colt Peacemaker clones they’re making these days, and how much fun it would be to have one. Then I ask myself: how do you hit anything with those crappy sights?

I also want a Colt Woodsman clone. But I don’t think they’re on the market yet. If I had any idea which grandchild ran off with the one my grandfather had, I’d make a cash offer.

I used Hornady One Shot to clean the 1911s. It hurts to say this about a product that costs so much, but that crap is incredible. It seems to dissolve powder much better than Gun Scrubber, although I haven’t tried them side-by-side. If I knew of a way to spray Hoppe’s with force and precision, I think I’d use that instead, but their aerosol is probably expensive, too. One Shot blows the crap out of your gun fast, and to get lubrication at the same time, you just wipe the residue off the parts where you DON’T want lubrication. The rest will have a nice silicone film on them. I left some of the film on the SW1911, which has a matte finish. But I used denatured alcohol to take it off the bright-finish Colt.

That’s the range report. God bless America.

Ask Pharaoh

I found an answer to my question regarding a way to store my spare magazines. If you enter “sunglasses pouch” in the Google Products form, you get microfiber drawstring pouches for 78 cents. That is pretty hard to beat. I would get them locally, but I have no idea who has them, and I would blow four dollars in gas just to find out. Then I’d have to pay tax.

I think the oil problem is going to crush bricks-and-mortar retailers. In the past, when you shopped online, you got better information, lower prices, and no tax. Now you get to save significant gas money. Tell me why I should ever leave the house again.

Very bad news, if you ask me. People will lose businesses and jobs. And what happens in the future when a hostile power effortlessly destroys our communications satellites and cables? Instant disruption of electronic shopping and transactions. Economic chaos.

In the meantime, good deals abound.

My great hope is that the oil mess is like the housing mess. Greatly inflamed by deranged speculators. Exacerbated deliberately by Muslims angry over our support of the only civilized nation in the Middle East. Temporary. People are saying it’s going to get worse, forever. I don’t see how that’s possible. It’s not like world demand for oil instantly increased to a degree that justifies current prices. Things are getting tighter, but we–the human race–could still pump and refine enough oil to meet demand, if we tried. And eventually, we will have to acknowledge that nuclear power is clean, safe, cheap, and abundant. A lie can’t persist for eternity. Some people say nukes are no good because it takes 20 years to build a plant. I say it takes that long because we’re not motivated. Kick the greenies out of the way, stop humoring the hysterical, and it probably takes more like three years. It didn’t take us 20 years to build the first plant at Hanford, when we were trying to create the first atom bomb. I very much doubt the construction of safe modern plants takes other countries 20 years.

I like to think our current hardships are a labor pain, to remind us of the horrors that lie ahead as the second coming approaches. Human beings increasingly accept the conceit that they run the world and that they can solve their own problems. In reality, God runs everything. If we have good harvests, if we have oil, if we have economic strength, it isn’t because Americans are superior. It’s because God chose to give these things to us. And He can take them away in a heartbeat. Maybe God is giving us a little prod to remind us that we can’t celebrate sexual perversion and let Israel down and indulge in idolatry and generally offend Him without losing our blessings. Lately we’ve been becoming more like Godless Europe. So it’s only natural that we should get a taste of their economic inferiority.

Could be worse. We could be on our way to slavery in Babylon, in chains. What has happened to us so far is pretty mild.

The global warming myth is probably the most ridiculous example of man’s belief that he is a god. Aside from the bad science, who could possibly believe in God and also think man could control the weather? Remember the book of Genesis. Who gave the Egyptians lean years and fat years? It wasn’t Halliburton.

I think our behavior has gotten so bad, we’re teetering on the line between “blessed” and “cursed.” The bad things that threaten to occur now are so ridiculous and avoidable, yet so possible, that they can’t be anything but the result of divine action. Who could be dumb enough to believe in ethanol, knowing it has to cause starvation and that it won’t help with our energy problems? Nobody with any common sense. Yet here we are, with food prices skyrocketing because we invested in this absurd, suicidal project. What nation could be dumb enough to refrain from using its own vast energy reserves, or from developing adequate refining capacity? Yet here we are, with gasoline threatening to hit twelve dollars per gallon and our own oil and uranium still in the ground.

Seems to me that one sign that a misfortune is due to a curse is that it happens even though it appears to be something that could be easily avoided. If man is so powerful and so smart, these things should not be happening. But they are.

In Exodus, God sent ten plagues to Egypt, and some scholars believe each one was intended to humiliate a particular Egyptian false deity, by destroying the particular blessings that false deity was believed to provide. Maybe what’s happening to us now is intended to humiliate the worst false deity of all. Man.

The other day I saw Dagen McDowell and Ben Stein on Fox, claiming we needed eleven-dollar gasoline. NEEDED. These are supposed to be experts. Imagine what life would be like if their prayers were answered. Bedroom communities all over America would be destroyed, because no one would be able to get to work. The wealth contained in the real estate in those communities would be annihilated; it would be as though it had never existed. Retail sales would shrivel. Food prices would climb out of sight, and production would plummet. Factories would close. Manufacturers would shut down. Goods would be unavailable. McDowell says mass transit is the answer. Tell that to people who live where mass transit does not exist, and where it’s not practical. And how do you build new mass transit with an economy destroyed by expensive energy? Where does the money to build it come from? Let me guess. Higher taxes. On people who no longer earn enough to contribute anything significant. You can’t starve the golden goose and then jack up the egg quota.

Economic prosperity comes from consumption. No sales? No prosperity. It’s that simple. And obvious. Yet intelligent people somehow believe the opposite. How can that happen, if something beyond the natural is not at work?

Some people say conservation is the answer. Some say increased production is the answer. Fundamentally, refraining from offending God is the answer. The world is too complicated for man to run. Without help from above, we can expect nothing but defeat. One of the big lessons I’ve learned over the last few years is that when things go badly for me, the way to start fixing them is to examine my own behavior and attitudes. Generally, that’s where the cause lies. And the same applies to Americans as a whole.

Victory is Mine

I managed to generate 100 rounds of .38 Super ammunition. I hope it works.

Setting up the press was not too bad, although it seems like the decapping pin works best when it extends a lot farther than the manual says. The little 9mm bullets are harder to get a grip on than big ol’ .45 slugs. That was annoying. And the few times the primer feed didn’t work, the No. 7 powder whizzed right out through the primer holes. The huge flakes of Unique weren’t nearly as bad.

One nice thing about No. 7: if you double a charge, you can see it a mile away. It fills the case.

I can’t understand why a small, light round requires 1.6 times as much powder as a huge round. I suppose traveling 1.5 times as fast is part of it, and I assume the powders are inherently different.

Winchester primers are packaged much more intelligently than Federals. They’re upright in their trays, so you can plop them right out on your primer tray, close it, flip it, and start filling your primer tube.

I didn’t use case lube, but I put the cases in a bag, sprayed a quick shot of dry lube in there, and rolled them around. May have made life somewhat easier. Oddly, I had no trouble marking the cases later. I put Sharpie marks on the bottoms of the cases, to make them easier to spot at the range. I don’t care what happens to my other cases, because they’re free, but I am not losing a single .38 Super without a fight.

I’m up to 835 rounds of .45 ammunition! I now have no excuse for not shooting a minimum of 200 rounds a week. That should be good for my marksmanship. Instead of shooting 25 rounds per set, maybe I’ll go up to 50.

I don’t know if I want to screw with making up recipes. I think that if these loads work, I’ll just buy a big jug of Unique and a big jug of No. 7 and be satisfied.

Ammunition Glut

I’m such a liar. I said I was going to do .38 Super today, but then I went out to the workbench and saw the .45 stuff sitting there, and one thing led to another…

I now have 750+ rounds of pretty lead .45 ammunition, and I’m tumbling enough brass to get me to about 850. At that point, continuing will not be an option. I have around 180 .38 Super cases ready to go. That’s more than enough to make for a fine range day later in the week.

I truly need to improve the rigidity of the press’s attachment to the bench. Two bolts just won’t cut it. I’m still getting enough powder flying out of cases to jam up the primer punch every 150-200 rounds. I may have improved the situation by using slow force instead of plain old momentum on the upswing, which sets the primers in the cases. We’ll see on the next go-around. When you swing the handle into the up position, it really rocks the press, and mechanical things don’t like momentum. Seats the primers real good, however.

I’m getting advice on the OAL for Hornady hollow points. Someone said the OAL wasn’t important, because you can get any OAL you want by shoving the bullet into the case the right distance. However, I thought the pressure inside the case was related to the depth to which the bullet was seated. I thought that was the big worry, with regard to OAL. Otherwise, why would they vary so much for similar bullets? It can’t just be about feeding smoothly, can it?

It’s hard to believe I have to worry about .45 cases, where the pressures are below 15,000. That’s less than half the pressure you get with .38 Super.

I guess I’ll have 2-3,000 rounds of ammunition on hand eventually. Imagine how scary that would sound, if a biased journalist got ahold of it. And of course, it only reflects a common-sense effort to save by buying in bulk. I’d be totally thrilled to buy and store less, if I didn’t get hammered financially for doing it.

Marv has seen the story about the Japanese parrot who told the cops his address. Marv is not impressed.

Someone get George Holliday

Someone tell me why reloading companies have such great service. Is it because they’re terrified of losing their customers to frustration, or is it simply because they’re solid conservative people who believe in giving customers a good deal? Probably the latter. A lot of gun companies have great service, too, paying to fix stuff their customers destroyed through stupidity. And I don’t think they have the same worries about frustrated customers who are ready to throw their products into canals.

I have a Lyman XP1000 (or 1000XP) powder scale. I kicked the power cord and knocked it off my bench. The little plastic lid broke. I could glue it together, but I hate it when I buy something nice and new and I screw it up and I have to patch it up like a hobo. I contacted Lyman and asked if I could buy a new lid, and I admitted I broke it. Their response? “We’ll send you a new one.”

How about that?

The scale seems to work very well. I have had no problems with it.

I am thinking it might be a good idea to try to worm my way into gun writing. I know virtually nothing about guns, but I’m very enthusiastic, and I’m a lawyer, so presumably I can be of some use, writing about gun rights. Something to think about. I could bring some fun to the genre; that’s for sure. Is there a gun humorist out there, in line ahead of me? Can’t think of one.

I decided to get some new clips. If you’re one of those people who has a seizure when someone says “clip” instead of “magazine,” let me just say that I will try to clip this habit in the bud, although at present I tend to say the word “clip” at a very high clip.

Try not to swallow your tongues.

Up until now, I’ve thought of the 1911s as range guns, but it can’t hurt to have some real-life ammunition for them. If I buy some, I’ll want to load two clips permanently. So to shoot cheap ammunition at the range, I’ll have to unload one clip for each gun and then reload it later. That’s not great for the bullets, and it’s a pain. So extra clips are a must. Here’s the big problem: how do you store them with a gun in a bag? If you toss them in loose, everything gets scratched up (Glocks excepted). My tentative solution: buy a really cheap sunglass case for each clip. If you have a better solution, let me know.

I only have one clip for the Desert Eagle. I don’t keep it loaded, because I don’t use it for protection. I will regret this if attacked by an elephant or a brontosaurus, but around here, most burglars are people, and I don’t want to shoot through one and have the round go through a wall and kill my neighbor’s Mercedes.

I am still not sure what the .50 Action Express is good for, other than fun. One good thing about the Desert Eagle: pimps like them. And they’re very hard to shoot, so this makes it less likely that a pimp will be able to hit anyone.

I looked at some bullet-casting videos the other day. Doesn’t look too bad, with a 6-bullet mold. Talk me out of it.

Before you start, let me tell you I already heard about the parrot in Japan that gave the cops its name and address. If it’s on Drudgebart.tv.com, I have seen it. I haven’t taught Marvin his address. It’s not really a great idea. What if you move? The cops would force an annoying parrot on the people who bought your house.

Marv has little useful information to impart to the cops. If they interrogated him, they would hear things like, “Can I rub your fat head?”, “Let me squeeze your toes,” “TURD TURD TURD,” and “You’re stupid.” I guess I could teach him to say “doughnut” or “pension.”

There is a beatboxing parrot on Youtube. If it ever gets caught by the police, they’ll beat it to death. You know how cops hate rap. Here:

I know I tempt people to buy African greys. Don’t do it. Some are good pets, but many are miserable.

I’m going to try to make .38 Super ammunition. I was going to finish off my .45 lead, but I can’t take the boredom any more. And I’m out of empty boxes to put it in. I looked at the prices of plastic ammunition boxes. Like 3 bucks for a 100-round box. Are they high? This is the kind of thing you get free when you buy things other than bullets. In fact, a lot of cheap bullets come in reusable boxes. I’d be thrilled to pay a dollar each, but three bucks seems like a ripoff. Maybe I’ll just put bullets in my pockets.

You laugh now. Next year, everyone will be doing it.